Businessman who pitched Memphis on nuclear power now has a different offer — solar and natural gas

Franklin Haney, the East Tennessee businessman who once pitched Memphis on nuclear electricity, has entered the chat once again.

Now, he's offering Memphis solar and natural gas energy that his company says could save Memphis and Shelby County $356 million a year.

His company disclosed its bid on Memphis' electricity supply publicly Tuesday at a luncheon hosted by groups advocating that Memphis Light Gas and Water leave the Tennessee Valley Authority.

Attendees found an orange PowerPoint presentation on the red-checkered table cloths that are synonymous with the venue — Charlie Vergos' Rendezvous.

That presentation revealed that Franklin L. Haney Company has partnered with ACES Power Marketing, General Electric, NTE Energy, Morgan Stanley and Leeward Renewable Energy on a bid for Memphis' power supply.

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Bill McCollum, the CEO of Franklin L Haney Company, confirmed the bid in an interview Tuesday. The new bid — focused on solar, natural gas and battery storage — is a stark contrast to Haney's years-long effort to sell Memphis electricity from an unfinished nuclear plant in Hollywood, Alabama.

The presentation released Tuesday outlined $356 million in annual savings to Memphis if it left TVA. It said, "ACES optimal portfolio for Memphis combines locally built generation and contract resources to get the best cost."

It outlined that Memphis would receive power from:

• 2,000 megawatts of natural gas

• 2,8000 megawatts of solar

• 900 megawatts of energy storage

The release of the presentation and McCollum's acknowledgment of the bid make Franklin L Haney Company the first bidder to go public during the power supply bidding, giving the group a chance to shape public opinion while MLGW keeps the details of all the bids it received sealed until at least mid-August.

"MLGW has said it is OK for bidders to go out to talk to people... The only thing we've ever asked for and the only thing we want anyone to consider now -- we want to see a fair objective process... Right now it does not appear there is an open and transparent process," McCollum said.

McCollum said NTE and GE would help construct the natural gas plants, Leeward would develop the solar farms, Morgan Stanley would provide financing and ACES would handle contracting with MLGW.

MLGW would pay Franklin L Haney Corporation for electricity if it was selected as the winning bidder, McCollum said. He said the natural gas plants and much of the solar electricity would be constructed within Shelby County limits.

Bid follows legal war between Haney, TVA

Haney's new effort to capture Memphis' electricity dollars comes after his failed attempt to lead MLGW out of TVA and have it purchase power from the Bellefonte Nuclear Plant, an unfinished plant owned by TVA.

That pitch became public in 2018 when McCollum told the Memphis City Council that MLGW could save more than $400 million a year if it bought power from the Bellefonte Plant after Nuclear Development, a company owned by Haney and members of his family, purchased the plant from TVA.

Then, as it is now, Haney's pitch included the line that Memphis was losing "$1 million a day" each day it waited to leave TVA.

McCollum served as chief operating officer of Nuclear Development, a firm that is now defunct after a federal judge in Alabama ruled that TVA did not have to sell the plant.

That legal battle — once The Commercial Appeal successfully had records in the case unsealed — revealed the extensive efforts that Haney took to influence Memphis leaders and federal government officials in his endeavor to secure an electricity buyer.

In a deposition, Haney acknowledged he had made political donations to members of the Memphis City Council because it is the body that makes the final decision about leaving TVA. Haney's friend, U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, helped Nuclear Development secure meetings with key Memphis leaders.

The documents also revealed how concerned TVA was about losing Memphis — its largest electricity customer. The filings indicated that while TVA used obscure laws that govern nuclear plants to deny the transfer of Bellefonte to Haney's ownership, its primary concern was keeping Memphis — a fact U.S. District Judge Liles Burke noted in one of his rulings in the case last year.

Bid reveal follows luncheon, public pressure effort

Haney's bid becoming public came as a slew of interested parties criticized the MLGW bidding process Tuesday.

The critiques were noteworthy because they followed the first public release of information from MLGW about the bids it has received on its power supply. Last week, the utility's consultant said the prospective annual savings if MLGW left TVA were in the tens of millions, not the hundreds of millions projected by numerous studies in 2019 and 2020.

MLGW released the information about the bids in a presentation last week. It included no information on the names of the companies or the bids themselves. The lack of publicly available information was roundly criticized Tuesday.

Herman Morris, the former head of MLGW, said the information released by MLGW last week was flawed and discounted the savings the utility could find if it left TVA — savings that could reduce the high energy burden in the city.

Read more: Money and Power: TVA feared Memphis would be lured away by promise of unfinished nuclear plant

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He said Memphis generating its own power locally would turn MLGW into an "economic development engine," and keep the hundreds of millions that are sent to "Knoxville," where TVA is based in the region.

Morris, a paid consultant for environmental group Friends of the Earth, was among the leave-TVA advocates who spoke at Charlie Vergos' Rendezvous Tuesday during a luncheon that the advocates billed as an educational event aimed at informing the public about the benefits of leaving TVA.

The luncheon was attended by a broad swath of Memphis’ political class and displayed the combined clout of Memphis consultants who are being paid by parties interested in Memphis leaving TVA. Attendees included two members of the Memphis City Council and several members of the Tennessee General Assembly.

Morris was joined by Van Turner, a Shelby County Commissioner and president of the Memphis Branch of the NAACP. Turner, who is mulling a bid for Memphis mayor in 2023, continues to work as an attorney for Haney as he has since 2018.

Dennis Lynch of the local Sierra Club and Karl Schledwitz, CEO of Monogram Foods, also attended the event and critiqued MLGW's power supply bidding. Schledwitz is the head of the organization $450 Million for Memphis — a group of businesspeople who are advocating for Memphis to find power outside of TVA.

None of those who critiqued TVA Tuesday went over the presentation sitting on the tables. However, Schledwitz indirectly acknowledged one bid.

"We have reason to believe there is one bid with $350 million in annual savings," Schledwitz said.

Schledwitz went on to say that the savings could transform the city of Memphis — paying for investments in transit and education. He described Memphis as a "poor city" that now had a "chance" to transform the city.

The businessman's language was similar to the presentation found on the tablecloths. It said, "A portion of the $356 million in savings will directly to city budget each year and can be used for critical programs..."

Schledwitz has said he has no business interest in MLGW's decision and no business affiliation with Haney. The two have known each other for decades and have both been heavily involved in statewide Democratic politics.

The city of Memphis has not taken a position as to whether any savings from leaving TVA could actually be passed back to city government.

Samuel Hardiman covers Memphis city government and politics for The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached by email at samuel.hardiman@commercialappeal.com or followed on Twitter at @samhardiman.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Memphis Light Gas and Water: Businessman offers solar, natural gas